Eaters

Dos viejos comiendo sopa by Franisco de Goya
Dos viejos comiendo sopa by Francisco de Goya

1

i remember Japanese construction
workers at a noodle bar

joking with the queer foreigner
who talked like a child

and didn’t get what word
they were trying to teach

when all they wanted to hear
was an audible slurp

2

I don’t eat anything
without a face she said

however blank or fanciful
it must have personality

like a tomato that bites
back she said

and hugged
herself tighter

a black leather coat
draped over her bones

3

they say if you eat chanterelles
in the dark of the moon

you gain the power to hear
what the worms are whispering

they say if you drink ginseng tea
you’ll have very expensive piss

they say if you’re starving
you can eat the inner bark of trees

but i feed the serpent in my gut
nothing but eggs

4

i’ll have
the usual

delectable products
of animal misery

comfort food
isn’t it

6

Goya’s two old people
eating soup at the Prado

a year after the death
of the butcher
of Guernica

and 12-year-old me shocked
at the potential horror
in something so primordial

learning how wholly consumption
can consume us

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